Auction of Christopher Watts Murder House Rescheduled Again

This week, the Frederick, Colorado, house where admitted slayer Christopher Watts killed his pregnant wife and two children in August 2018 was finally supposed to be up for auction, following three separate delays last year. But, no: The auction has been pushed back again, and now won't take place until next month at the earliest — nearly ten months after the original date.

The frequent postponements have given the media hell. A slew of articles and reports marking the passage of a year since the tragedy announced the auction date for the residence at 2825 Saratoga Trail as September 18, 2019. But attorney Jessica Hale, whose law firm, McCarthy Holthus, LLP, represents the seller, JPMorgan Chase Bank, told us via email that the odds of such a transaction happening were mighty slim.

"Unfortunately, we cannot provide any detail as to why the sale has been postponed," Hale wrote about previous delays for auctions scheduled on April 17 and July 17, respectively. "I predict the sale will not be taking place 9/18/2019."

She was right. Despite all those references to September 18, the website of Weld County Public Trustee Susie Velasquez listed the date as January 8, 2020 — which has now come and gone. The page pertaining to the home currently maintains that the auction will take place on February 12.

The potential for change doesn't shock Velasquez, who will be handling the proceedings whenever they take place. "Some foreclosures are continued several times, and we usually don't know why," she told us last year. "We just receive information from the attorney for the lender, and they don't give us a reason."

One possibility: While there's a lot of curiosity about the house, as Velasquez acknowledged, there may be considerably less interest in paying market value for the setting of violence so extreme that it made coast-to-coast headlines for weeks. More details can be found in our post "Watts Family Killings Update and Why Colorado Crimes So Often Go National."